Hajj Rites Day by Day: Arafah, Mina, Jamarat (2026)

By Farhan Momen (Founder & Travel Editor) · Published November 2, 2026 · Updated 2026-11-02 · 8 min read

Checked 2 November 2026: the day order the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah publishes, joined to the dated rulings it does not publish — the Arafah window that runs to dawn, why shaving is missing from the ministry's Day 10 list, the pebble counts, and the sunset rule that decides whether you leave Mina on the 12th or the 13th. Not a fatwa; school differences are named, not decided.

This page is for a pilgrim who already has a Hajj seat and will be in Mina within days. It gives the order of the rites from 8 to 13 Dhul-Hijjah and the ruling inside each day that decides whether what you did counts. It is not a fatwa and it does not settle differences between the schools; where the schools differ, the difference is named.

Quick Answer — Checked 2 November 2026: the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah orders the journey as Mina on the Day of Tarwiyah, then Arafah, then Muzdalifah, then Jamrat al-Aqaba al-Kubra, the sacrifice, Tawaf Al-Ifadhah and Sa'y of Hajj, then the night of the 10th in Mina, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, and Tawaf Al-Wadaa. The Ministry publishes the order and no timings. Every hour below comes from a dated ruling, and is attributed.

1. WHY THE TIMES HERE ARE NOT FROM THE MINISTRY

The Ministry's Hajj page lists the journey as a clean sequence and names the pillars: Ihram, Standing at Arafah, Tawaf Al-Ifadhah and Sa'i. [1] It does not state a single hour, a pebble count or an exit condition.

That is not an oversight. When a rite is valid, how many stones are thrown, and under what condition a pilgrim may leave Mina are ruling questions, and they belong to scholarship rather than to an administrative ministry. A travel site that prints a timetable as though the ministry issued it is inventing one. So each time on this page is attributed, and where the schools differ you are told rather than handed a single verdict.

2. THE SHAPE OF THE FIVE OR SIX DAYS

The rites run from the 8th to either the 12th or the 13th. Leaving on the 12th is nafar awwal and gives five days; staying for the 13th is nafar thani and gives six. The gap between them is one night in Mina and 21 pebbles. Nobody should discover which one their group booked while standing beside a coach.

3. 8 DHUL-HIJJAH — MINA, THE DAY OF TARWIYAH

Enter Ihram for Hajj from Makkah or its environs, then go to Mina and stay the night there, praying Zuhr, 'Asr, Maghrib, 'Isha and Fajr. [2]

This is the quietest of the five days and the only one you can use to prepare. The Ministry lists Mina as the first stage of the journey and says nothing further about it. [1]

4. 9 DHUL-HIJJAH — ARAFAH, AND THE WINDOW THAT DECIDES EVERYTHING

When the sun rises, move to Arafah, pray Zuhr and 'Asr together and shortened at the time of Zuhr, then make du'a, dhikr and seek forgiveness until the sun sets. [2]

The standing is valid from the moment the sun passes its zenith on the 9th until dawn on the 10th. That is the position of Malik, Abu Hanifah and the majority of the scholars, as al-Nawawi reports it; Ahmad held that it begins at dawn on the 9th rather than at noon. [3]

The practical consequence is the most useful thing on this page. If the coach is late and you reach Arafah after sunset, your Hajj is not lost: whoever reaches Arafah at any point before dawn on the Day of Sacrifice has performed the standing and must complete the remaining rites. [3] What you must not do is leave Arafah deliberately before sunset. [2]

The mistake that actually costs a Hajj is standing in the wrong place, and it is the mirror image of the one above. Some pilgrims stop outside the boundary of Arafah, stay until the sun goes down and then leave for Muzdalifah. Those who stand there have not performed Hajj, because the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Hajj is 'Arafah." Whoever does not stand in a place that is part of Arafah, at the time appointed for the standing, his Hajj is not valid. [7] The boundary is marked and the markers are not hidden; look for them before you sit down, and do not take a driver's word for it. Time here is forgiving; location is not. Arrive after sunset and you are covered until dawn. Stand a few hundred metres on the wrong side of the line and no amount of time helps.

Two smaller mistakes repeat every year in the same crowd. The first is going silent: pilgrims stop reciting the Talbiyah on the road from Mina to Arafah, though the Prophet (peace be upon him) kept reciting it until he had stoned Jamrat al-Aqabah on the day of Eid. [7] The second is direction. People turn to the mountain for du'a because the Prophet stood near it, but he faced the qiblah with the mountain between him and it, and facing the hill instead is recorded as a mistake. [7] All of Arafah is the place of standing: you do not have to reach any particular spot, and the pilgrims who exhaust themselves getting to one have made the day harder than it was made for them. [7]

Then Muzdalifah. Leave Arafah after sunset and travel there, praying Maghrib and 'Isha on arrival, staying the night, praying Fajr and making du'a until just before sunrise. [2] The weak — women, children, the elderly and those caring for them — may leave at the end of the night: Asma bint Abi Bakr waited for the moon to set, then left Muzdalifah for Mina. [4]

5. 10 DHUL-HIJJAH — THE ORDER THAT TRIPS PEOPLE UP

The Ministry's Day 10 sequence reads Jamrat al-Aqaba al-Kubra, then the sacrifice, then Tawaf Al-Ifadhah and Sa'y of Hajj. [1] Read it twice, because shaving is not in it, and shaving is the step that ends most of the prohibitions of Ihram.

The fuller order is to stone Jamrat al-Aqabah with seven pebbles, then slaughter the hadiy, then shave the head or cut the hair, then go to Makkah for the tawaf of Hajj. [2] Men shave or shorten; women cut about the length of a fingertip from the ends of the hair and do not shave. [2][6]

On timing, the stoning of Jamrat al-Aqabah begins after the sun has risen and lasts until sunset on the Day of Sacrifice. The weak may do it at the end of the night of 'Eid. It may be delayed to the end of the night because of severe crowding or distance, but not to dawn on the 11th. [4]

6. 11, 12 AND 13 DHUL-HIJJAH — THE TASHREEQ DAYS

Stay the nights of the 11th and 12th in Mina. On each of those days, after the sun has passed its zenith, stone the three jamarat in order, beginning with the smallest, which is the one furthest from Makkah, then the middle, then Jamrat al-Aqabah, seven pebbles at each and the takbir with every throw. Make du'a after the small and the middle; there is no du'a after the Aqabah. [2]

Stoning before the sun passes its zenith on the 11th, 12th or 13th is not permissible, because the Prophet (peace be upon him) did not do it before that time and told the people to learn their rites from him. [4] The window ends at the end of the night: stoning at night is permitted where heat or crowding makes the day hard, but delaying it past dawn is not. [4]

The counts are seven on the 10th and then 21 on each day. Leave on the 12th and that is 49 pebbles. Stay for the 13th and it is 70.

The exit rule is where most confusion lives. Hastening has a precise meaning, and it is not simply leaving early: it means leaving Mina before sunset on the 12th after having stoned the jamarat. Leave before sunset without stoning and come back afterwards to stone, and you have not hastened. [8] Finish the stoning on the 12th and leave Mina before sunset, and the 13th is waived for you. If the sun sets while you are still in Mina, you must stay the night and stone the three jamarat on the 13th after the sun passes its zenith. [5] But if you had packed and boarded the bus and the road held you there, you were not in Mina by choice, and you do not have to stay. [2]

7. BEFORE YOU LEAVE MAKKAH

Once the days are over and you intend to travel, do not leave until you have performed the farewell tawaf, seven circuits of the Kaaba. Women who are menstruating or bleeding after childbirth are exempt from it. [2]

8. WHAT THESE SOURCES DO NOT TELL YOU

Where your tent is, how far it stands from the jamarat, when your coach moves, how long you will be standing, and who holds your medication are all set by your package. None of it is on the ministry pages above, and none of it is a ruling. Get three answers in writing before the 8th: the departure time for Arafah on the 9th, the meeting point if your group separates in the crowd, and whether the package is nafar awwal or nafar thani. A pilgrim holding those three answers can follow the sequence above without guessing at any point.

If your trip includes Umrah as well, the tawaf and sa'i mechanics sit on the companion page, which covers where a circuit begins and how seven are counted.

9. CHECKING THIS PAGE YOURSELF

Every claim above carries a number, and the numbered source sits at the foot of the page. If this page and a source disagree, the source is right and this page is stale — that is the rule, and it is why the numbers are there rather than in a bibliography nobody reads.

Two things move under a reader's feet. The first is the ministry's journey order, read on 2 November 2026: it is administrative and it can be reordered between seasons. The second is the rulings, which are answers to questions rather than a settled code — which is exactly why the schools are named where they differ, and why neither position is chosen for you.

If you are reading this during Hajj and something on the ground contradicts it, follow the person responsible for your group and check the source afterwards. A page cannot see the crowd you are standing in.

None of this replaces your own scholar on your own case. It is a map of what the dated sources say, checked on 2 November 2026.